there's a ghost in my mouth (and it talks in my sleep)
by Eledhiel
Summary: The Winter Soldier is a machine. A weapon: efficient, effective. Hindered by neither experience nor conscience. A tool, his handlers tell him. Wiped as a gun is cleaned, to keep him in perfectly working order. None of which explains the voice in his head that won't go away. (Not part of It's a Small World.)


Notes: So I have this thing where I swear I'm not going to do something (ie. title a story with song lyrics) and then an hour later I go out and do it. So title from Florence and the Machine's _I'm Not Calling You a Liar_.

Do I still need spoiler warnings for CA:TWS? Because yeah, spoilers for the movie.

* * *

The Winter Soldier wakes. Awareness creeps in at a glacial pace, one sense at a time. Trembling in his limbs. Ice clinging to his bones. Blood like slush in his veins. Light stabbing his eyes, lids too sluggish to blink it out. Dusty, stale air clogging his nose. His throat feels thick. Can't swallow. The coppery tang of blood coats his tongue, chattering teeth shredding the insides of his cheeks.

Silence in his ears.

"Что-то не так," he tries to say. His mouth won't move.

Hearing snaps into place after that, dull footsteps. Murmurs from far corners of the room. He doesn't turn his head to look despite the blinding light overhead. He realizes he's been hearing them for a while now, the sounds washing over his ears like the first currents in a thawing river.

The silence is in his head.

He retreats there, letting his eyelids soften the bright searchlight above him. It's empty, a void. As it should be, yes. But there's something…something that—

"Report," cracks a voice, just to his left. Close enough to reach out. Crush the throat, collapse the airway—he doesn't move. The voice is not talking to him. And it's not what he's looking for anyway. He's looking for…

He doesn't know what he's looking for.

A man moves up to his right, steps feeble and flighty. Begins to give what sounds like a status report: systems warming up, almost to optimal temperature. Cognitive function increasing rapidly, fine motor control becoming less sluggish. They're talking about him.

He ignores them. He is not to address any of them unless spoken to first. He knows this like he knows everything, things in his head he can't remember being told.

He clenches his hands, manipulating the fingers in a pattern he knows is muscle memory. Tendons in the right stretching; hinges in the left creaking. The chair he lies in is levered upright with no warning. He does not react.

A man stands before him, on his left side. The Winter Soldier regards him without interest. He knows this man though he can't remember having seen him before. His light hair is tempered with grey and he tucks a thick pair of glasses into his breast pocket. His face is pleasant. Mouth creased in an affable grin.

The Soldier thinks he hates this man. He does not know why.

"We have a mission for you," the man says. His voice matches the first one he'd heard clearly, asking for a report. The Soldier knew it would.

He says nothing.

The man looks pleased with himself. The mission will be important. "You will lead the world into its new order with this task. This is the first big step into greatness. Do HYDRA proud."

The Soldier nods, once. It's almost lost in the shivers still clinging to his frame.

His support team is waiting. They prep him with efficiency, pass one weapon after another through his hands. Letting him have enough familiarity to operate each but not letting him stay armed for long. It is no matter; he does not need a weapon to kill them all here and now. But it is not something he is allowed to do so he does not consider it.

He waits. There is still silence in his head.

He follows the team to transport, lets them maneuver him in place as he should. He absorbs the information they give him: the target will leave the Triskelion in approximately one hour. This is his projected route. These are his three possible destinations.

The plan comes to him with ease and he gives the team their orders. He does not ask why the man (Fury, Nicholas J., Colonel, SHIELD Director) is a target. He does not ask what he has done to deserve death (should it matter?).

He waits again. The silence reigns.

He listens as the plan is put into action. The support team is inefficient and the men make many mistakes. Then again, it is the nature of men. They cannot be expected to operate as well as a machine such as he.

A low hum fills the back of his mind, like a gentle buzz.

He ignores it. And the way he feels somehow warmer at its appearance.

He checks: roadblocks on the bridge holding, his street remains clear. He waits.

There is a soft sigh in his head.

He continues ignoring it. He knows it will not take long for the other to grow impatient. He does not remember how he knows this, either.

Soon enough, a whisper fills his mind. _'So what's on the menu today?'_ The voice in his head does not sound happy. The Soldier lifts his right shoulder by an increment, copying a movement he has seen other men make. _'Don't know, don't care, huh? Business as usual.'_

"Мне не важно. Я просто выполняю задание," the Soldier murmurs to himself.

_'I'll never understand how you can be so sure, pal,'_ the man that lives in his head says, tone dripping with derision.

"Тебе и не нужно," the Soldier snaps. Doesn't say, Хорошо, что ты вернулся. Тишина была невыносима.

_'How 'bout some good old English? I know you speak it.'_

"Ты тоже говоришь по-русски."

_'Maybe I just like English better,'_ the voice purrs but the Soldier has to ignore it again. The remnants of the support team are driving the target toward him. It is time for his part.

He takes aim when he can just see the face of his target through the pock-marked windshield. He pulls the trigger and watches the man's expression: he is surprised, furious. There is no fear.

The Soldier's charge explodes and the car flips in a perfect arc. The voice in his head says nothing.

He walks to the car, wrenches off the flimsy door. The ruined vehicle is empty.

_'That's what you get for pussyfooting around,' _the man in his head laughs at him.

\/\/

Failure is not an option. He tracks the target into a residential section, leaves the fragmented support team behind. He locates the target but the angle is bad. The man sits in a darkened apartment and the low wall around the Soldier's roof is cutting into his position. He settles in to wait with a steady view through his infrared scope. The man will have to move before too long.

He does not experience impatience. The delay is easily bearable. Except…

The man in his head is singing along with the faint strains of music coming through his earpiece, wired into the apartment bugs. His pitch is terrible.

_'Hey,' _he snaps. _'It's not so bad.'_ The Soldier disagrees but doesn't say it. The voice hums along with the tune now instead.

The Soldier releases a long breath, to clear his lungs. It's not a sigh. He doesn't sigh.

_'Oh, fine,'_ the voice snorts. _'I never had much of an ear for singing, I'll give you that. Better on the ivories. Used to play 'em after the dance halls closed, sometimes.'_

The Soldier does not comment. He doesn't know what a dance hall is.

_'Sure you do, think back_,' the man laughs and the Soldier is startled by a vague impression. It seems to cling to the voice, a hazy hall filled with people and music. _'It's where all—'_

A deep rumble teases his ears and a motorcycle glides into view down the long street. It's the most movement the quiet neighborhood has seen for some time now. But even had it been busy, the big blond man riding it would have stood out.

The Soldier tilts his head to watch the man disembark, enter the building. A few minutes later he appears on the exterior fire escape, enters the darkened apartment by the window. The Soldier feels his eyebrows draw together. Another asset?

The voice in his head is utterly silent.

The Winter Soldier disregards it, focusing on the mission. The new man slinks through the apartment and approaches the main room, large metal disc in hand. The Soldier checks his position as the man relaxes against a wall corner. "I don't remember giving you a key," his voice crackles over the wire. It sounds…familiar. The Soldier must have encountered him before in one of the many missions he doesn't recall.

The voice in his head makes a very strange noise.

The Soldier ignores it; the target is moving. The shot he was waiting for is coming into view. He lines up his aim, ready to—

_'I don't believe it,'_ the voice in his head chokes. The Soldier pauses despite himself.

"Не веришь во что?"

_'That's…it can't be. They said he died!'_

The Soldier frowns at his scope. He hasn't taken the shot yet.

_'No, not him,'_ the voice snaps, suddenly angry. _'The other fella. Back in the war, they told you he died in the war.'_

The Soldier does not understand, so he cannot help the man understand. Besides, the target is standing now. The angle couldn't be better.

He pulls the trigger three times.

Then he disassembles his rifle, packs the pieces with economy of motion. Stands, moves away from the roof's edge.

The resounding crash of glass shattering echoes moments later. He looks down; the blond man is giving chase. A chill sweeps through his chest. No one has ever pursued him before. The Soldier picks up speed.

He lands on the lower roof of the next building in a controlled tumble, on his feet again in an instant. He is almost to the edge when the man surges from the other building. A strange whoosh fills his ears—he spins back on instinct and snatches out with his metal hand.

He's holding a shield.

He eyes the man, memorizing his face. He hurls the brightly painted disc back at the man and leaps over the roof, catching a ledge as he goes and swinging himself down in little more than a plummet.

The man does not matter. His mission is complete.

When he's reached the relative safety of back alleys, he returns his attention to the voice in his head. He recalls now that it had whispered something like, _'Don't hurt Steve, please—' _on the roof, when he'd had shield in hand. The Soldier hadn't listened then. He doesn't address it now. The man in his head is moaning to himself. The word _'No,'_ again and again and again.

The Soldier doesn't ask. He thinks the man has figured something out that he hasn't. Besides, his place is not to ask questions. Of anything.

He returns to his handlers. They congratulate each other. He just feels cold.

\/\/

The Winter Soldier wakes. He snaps out of the half doze he'd entered to rest his systems as he sat in the dark. Waiting for his next orders. A new mission will come. A new mission always comes. He wonders for a moment if this is the next step to greatness. There seems to be many steps. He shakes his head—he will take as many as is required. This is his function.

The man in his head snorts.

He does not know who the voice belongs to. It is always there, after a while. He remembers snatches of a story he heard once, long ago. It suggests the voice must have belonged to someone he killed, will forever haunt him now. It is a foolish, human notion. And one that startles him—he is not supposed to remember things like that.

_'The brain's a funny thing,'_ the man in his head says. _'Never know what gets locked inside, no matter how much they go for a clean slate. No machine is perfect.'_

The Soldier would take offense at that, if offense was something that concerned him.

The voice laughs at him again. _'Whatever you've gotta tell yourself.'_

The expected mission comes, from the man with the pleasant face and cold eyes. It is sealed with blood, an innocent bystander.

The Soldier receives his new targets. The man in his head is not laughing now.

A man, a woman. Ten hours.

It is the blond man.

The voice makes a sound like a sharp exhale of breath. The Soldier knows it's the sound a man makes when stabbed. He knows this like he knows everything.

\/\/

The Winter Soldier catches up to the targets on a bridge. The man in his head refuses to participate, hasn't said a word since the orders. The silence is disconcerting. But he can't stop. Failure is not tolerated. The other will have to understand.

He eliminates the first accessory easily: a passing truck obliges. He puts bullets through the vehicle roof where three heads should be—the car screeches to a halt. He flies.

He rolls, metal fingers arresting his motion. He stands. No one in the car is dead. _Annoying_, he huffs to himself. He realizes he is filling the silence in his head and dismisses it at once.

His support team arrives. Late, as usual.

The Soldier launches himself onto the car again, rips the steering wheel out to disable it. Then he jumps back to the support vehicle, chased by bullets not his own. He growls to himself.

The car disintegrates in short order, driven forward by the support vehicle. The three remaining passengers are still not dead. Two targets, one remaining accessory—all standing tall.

_'Of course Steve is,'_ the voice snaps. He knew the voice in his head would not hold out for long. He didn't expect it to mock him. _'He never knew how to back down from a fight, no matter how tough the bully.'_

The Soldier shoulders a grenade launcher and sets about changing this.

The blond man takes the first grenade, shield held high. He is no longer on the bridge. But the Soldier does not think he's been eliminated just yet. He focuses next on the other target, firing back at him insolently. Another grenade and she is also off the bridge. The accessory is irrelevant. He turns his attention to the street below.

The woman does not reappear. He looks to the overturned bus, burnt shield lying nearby. He aims and—a burst in his face, his glasses crack. He ducks behind the bridge wall, pulls the now useless goggles off. _'Spitfire,_' the man in his head laughs. The Soldier scowls. Fine, this target first.

He surges to his feet, firing with abandon at her last position based on the angle of her shot. She is not there; he didn't expect her to be. She's taken cover now, still firing back. When she runs out of ammo, she flees. She is careful to stay out of a clear shot.

A chase, then.

He instructs his support to find the blond man. He follows the woman.

But she is clever. He eliminates her diversion with excessive force, but she gets leverage over him anyway. He snakes a hand beneath her garrote, just in time—throws her off. Levels his rifle for a killing blow but she is as quick as she is sharp. An electric discharge rips through his metal arm, scrambling the gears. He wrenches it back into place. She is already gone.

No matter.

He still makes a shot.

When he gets into position to finish her off, he is interrupted again. The man has arrived, heralded by a crack of, _'No!'_ that echoes through his mind.

The fight is brutal, lightning quick. The Soldier manages to strip the shield off the man, slings it at him with all the force of his metal arm. The blond target dodges it, doesn't stop for it. His face is set with determination. The Soldier is hit by the feeling that it's a sight he's used to before the man strikes again.

He pulls out a knife and the man blocks, deflects. He is moving as though he still has his shield and the Soldier tries to take advantage of that, the weakness of dependence. Even with the power in his arm, he is still not fast enough and the man regains his precious disc.

He tries the knife again but the blond redirects his movement, jams the shield into the steel tricep. The Soldier is stunned for the briefest moment. The man in his head is chanting, _'Good, good!'_ He knows the voice is not talking to him. He knows this like he knows—no. This goes deeper.

He recovers with a twist, tries a desperate grapple. The man gets a good grip, one hand over his face mask, and throws him hard. The Soldier goes into a semi-controlled tumble; the mask falls away as he rolls. He forces unsteady feet into a solid stance and turns to face the blond.

But the man hasn't followed—is staring at him, white with shock. The Soldier prepares for his next assault, waiting to see if this is some kind of poor ruse. The man's open mouth forms a word, his voice strangled. Unbelieving. "Bucky?"

It's a slap across the Soldier's mind.

He tries to shake it off. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

But he thinks he might know.

He raises a gun to hide his distasteful uncertainty. He's too slow, thoughts strangely weighed down. Like something in his head is trying to pull him back.

He's slammed into from behind—the accessory. Damn. He should have killed him after all.

The Soldier recovers as quick as he can, rising to face Ste—his _target_. The target. His fist is clenched around the gun.

He realizes the voice in his head is screaming.

He looks away from the blond, mind reeling.

_'Stop_,' the voice is sobbing. '_Stop stop stop—'_

But he can't. The man in his head will have to understand, should understand. He _can't._ Failure is not tolerated. Even if he wanted to stop (does he?), he couldn't.

He locks his gaze back onto the target and raises the gun one more time.

Too slow, again. He has to dodge the grenade launched by the woman that won't die.

He decides to regroup after all, tactical fallback. The odds are now against him. He will stop, if just for the present. His mind is too fractured to finish the fight here.

The voice in his head is distracting now, hard to ignore. It hurts, in a way the Soldier has never experienced. The sound of those sobs, wrenching something in his chest where he thought there was nothing. He waits as he starts to make his slow way back to the bank vault. But the voice does not speak again.

\/\/

The Winter Soldier wakes.

He is at once struck by comfortable blankness and unfamiliarity. He is sitting upright in a chair. He is fully clothed. He is warm. He doesn't think he should be warm.

There is dusty air in his dry throat. It's raw, though he can't imagine why. There is silence in his head.

A man steps up before him: nervous, crisp white shirt wrinkled by his trembling. It makes the bow tie quiver. "Winter Soldier," he says.

The Soldier doesn't respond. He knows who he is. It's everything else he doesn't know.

There's something missing. There's always something missing.

"You have a mission," the man squeaks. The Soldier stands. The man, along with half the room, takes an abrupt step back. The other half set their feet and raise their guns another inch. He does not feel threatened.

He is just very, very tired.

\/\/

His support team unleashes him on a small set of airmen. It doesn't take very long. He commandeers a jet and launches it, up toward the floating helicarriers. He ignores the body in the copilot's seat—it doesn't speak to him. No one speaks to him, at least no one he'd care to listen to.

He finds his target on the deck, a brightly colored man without hope of stealth. Captain America, wearing stars and stripes on a uniform that looks decades old. That looks familiar, like so many things he was never told. But he doesn't know this like he knows everything. This feels…deeper.

He shakes his head. It's irrelevant.

He plows into the man. Sends him tumbling over the edge.

Catches the accessory by the wing, stops him from an inconvenient rescue. He rips one of those shiny wings clean off and can't remember why it feels good. The silence in his head doesn't provide an answer.

The Captain didn't fall. He will still have to be stopped.

He moves inside with deliberate steps, frowning to himself. The target will go to the belly of the ship. The Soldier had watched the accessory fly into the glass dome beneath one of the other ships—whatever they are after, it will be there. He will be there first.

The Winter Soldier waits on the catwalk. The target is coming.

_'Don't kill him,'_ a voice in his head abruptly begs. He's almost startled by the sudden bark, the sharp request. Recognizes in an instant that he's missed this voice, even when he didn't remember it was gone. It feels normal. It fills the ominous void in his brain.

He gathers his courage, latches onto the voice. Feels the impressions, vague scenes that seems to cling to the man in his head. Memories? Not quite. Not for him, at least.

"Who are you?" he asks, taking care to speak in English. It sounds just like the voice to his ears.

The man does not answer.

"Are you Bucky?" he goes on. It's less a question than he intends; it's more like a statement.

_'Please don't kill him,'_ is all the voice will whisper again.

The Soldier swallows hard. "I have to stop him. But…I won't. I won't kill him."

There are footsteps on the stairs. The Winter Soldier settles his face into a blank mask and that is that.

\/\/

The Captain has him by the throat; for the first time the Soldier experiences terror. The voice hums in his head, soothing strains.

Then he is on the ground, scrabbling for purchase. His fingers are tight around some kind of computer chip. The target has his arm, his flesh shoulder in a bruising grip. Tells him sharply, "Drop it!"

_I'm not a dog!_ he wants to snap. He grits his teeth instead. He's not sure it would be true.

"Drop it," the Captain says again, unyielding.

_'Do as he says,'_ the voice whispers. _'Let go of it.'_

The Soldier ignores them both, furious. He tightens his grip.

The crack of his shoulder dislocating echoes in his ears and he screams. The voice gasps with him. _You feel my pain_, the Soldier shouts in his brain, at the voice. _You should be on my side!_

The man in his head takes a deep breath with lungs that aren't real and repeats, steady as ever, _'Let it go.'_

The Captain's arm is around his throat now, choking, crushing. The Soldier bucks, desperate for air. Caught between two opponents, the one on his back and the one in his mind. He feels a stab of betrayal but he doesn't know why. He blacks out.

The next thing he knows, the Captain is climbing the central structure. The chip is clutched in his firm hand. The Soldier scrambles drunkenly to his feet, for his gun. His vision wavers but he blinks it away, shakes his head. He focuses on his target.

_'No!'_ the voice in his head shouts; he flinches. _'You promised!'_

"Yes," the Soldier murmurs. "I did." He takes his shot.

The Captain stumbles, but the cry of pain is in the Soldier's mind. His target looks down at him, face tight. Pulls himself to his feet without a sound and continues his climb. The Soldier lines up a second shot but it gives the supersoldier no more than a second's pause. He makes it to the catwalk. The Soldier lurches to a better position, aims for a third time. The man in his head gives a broken noise but doesn't say anything further. The Soldier is glad he knows he's lost the right, has asked all possible favors of his vessel. There are no more chances.

And yet…

He squeezes the trigger with the barest contraction of a rigid metal finger.

The Captain falls, blood seeping from his gut. The Soldier can see him land in a heap, slumped on the catwalk. He drops his gun. He is cold with sudden, foreign fear. The voice lets out a final choked sob and it sounds familiar. Makes him try to remember if he'd heard it before. He ponders the vague recollection, tied to a pain in his chest. His shoulder? No, lower. It's…not quite a physical pain. It hurts, in the chest. He remembers the word _stop _with sudden, sharp clarity. The voice had begged him. Stop what?

He'd been trying to kill the target. The man on the bridge, the Captain. His target now. He's met this man before. He must have.

_'More than once,'_ the voice in his head snaps, dripping bitterness and sorrow. _'He was your life.'_

The Soldier furrows his brow, grasping desperately at the half memories that float in a grey haze. "He was never my life," he answers, head filled again with the impressions. He feels…sad. If anything the man in his mind seems to cling to is true, he thinks he'd have liked the Captain to be. "He was yours."

_'It doesn't matter,'_ the man laughs. The sound is terrible. _'We're one and the same.'_

Before he can refute that, he hears the Captain's voice from above struggle to spit out, "Charlie lock." The Soldier growls, moving again to get a better view of the target. Damnable distraction. He wonders—and he thinks he must have wondered this often—if the voice in his head is trying to get him killed.

_'No,'_ the man sighs. _'But I can't say I would have been disappointed.'_

And then the world falls apart.

Steels fractures and glass shatters all around. The Soldier is pinned beneath a crushing support beam in the chaos and can't help the scream that is punched out of his chest. He struggles; he panics. He can't get out. He can see the Captain haul himself up against the catwalk rails, look down at him. The voice in his head is silent again. The Captain descends.

The Winter Soldier readies himself for a final blow. Captain America applies his strength to the beam instead.

The Soldier slides out from beneath the weight, panting hard almost in time with his opponent. The Captain's breath hitches and he speaks. "You know me."

It makes the Soldier angry, at the man before him and the man inside him. "No, I don't," he shrieks, making use of his durable metal arm to send the man he can touch flying. But the Captain doesn't stay down.

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes," he tries again. The Soldier unleashes another frustrated strike—the Captain doesn't hit back. He drops his shield. "I'm not going to fight you. You're my friend."

That is the last straw. _Not me, not me, not me_, he chants to himself as he tackles the man. He lets loose a deluge of abuse, promises be damned. "You're my mission," he spits, hitting again and again and again. He has to pause for breath at last, even with all his enhancements.

The Captain chooses that moment to strike his own final blow. "Then finish it," he mumbles around a bloody tongue, one eye bleary and the other swollen shut. "Because I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

The result is instantaneous, coupled with an assault from within. Too late he realizes the man in his head wasn't giving up—he was getting ready.

He is half submerged beneath a memory, vivid in its detail. He is grasping the Captain's bony shoulder, suit coat rough against his warm fingers. He is still holding the man down, but he is also embracing him. His hair falls in his eyes; it is slicked back with pomade. He stares at the dichotomy in horror: mission, friend. He can't distinguish.

Then it no longer matters.

The floor falls out beneath them and the Soldier grabs a remaining beam with a strong metal grip. The Captain has no chance, plummets down, down, down.

The voice in his head, strangely weak, is screaming again.

The Soldier watches for a long moment. He can't listen to the voice, to his own instincts. He is caught up in another memory and he thinks this time he's dreamt it up himself. Because it makes no sense: he is the one falling while the Captain holds on, too far away.

His metal fingers let go almost of their own accord and he plunges into the river after the Captain.

\/\/

The Winter Soldier wanders, keeping to the city shadows and eluding any form of public attention. He changes coats at regular intervals, stealing whatever he can find. The current regimen includes a dark jacket, baseball cap and argument with the man in his head.

He knows the Captain was recovered by rescue teams, was hauled off to a hospital hours ago. He is officially a failed mission. The Soldier is still reeling from it.

He's eluding the scattered remnants of HYDRA well; he is not going back to the vault. A blank future stretches out before him but he can't help the feeling that it's an empty promise. That any moment he'll be dragged back into hell. This time he'll go kicking and screaming, for sure. He wonders if he ever did before.

But for now he focuses on the voice in his head. It's getting stronger by the hour. The flashes of memory are cracking over him in a steady, disjoined stream now. He feels like he's losing himself in them, wants to tell the voice to make them stop. To turn them off. But he has the strangest feeling that the images aren't coming from the man. He's beginning to suspect that he's had the wrong perspective all along. That maybe their separation is something of an illusion.

It's making him…angry? Yes. He's angry.

_'What bee's in your bonnet now?'_ the man in his head huffs.

"You're supposed to be on my side," the Soldier snaps, surprising himself with his vehemence. "You're part of me. You said so. I remember."

The voice is quiet while he scopes out the best way to enter the building across the from him undetected. The Air and Space Museum, of the famous Smithsonian. He's heard there's an exhibit here. All about his target—the Captain. He told himself it's recon, before. Now he just wants to know.

He's inside and at the entrance to the exhibit before the voice speaks again. _'Yeah, I am. But that doesn't mean I'm on your side. It's not even your side, not really. You have to choose it for it to be yours.'_

The Soldier falters, eyes lingering on a photograph of a tiny man in an oversized Army uniform. Bones fragile, chest narrow. Familiar.

_'Yep,'_ the man murmurs. _'That's him. Steve as we knew him first.'_

The Soldier doesn't answer, moves away from the photo with quick steps. He breezes past the next displays, afraid the man will continue explaining. Then he finds himself in a larger room, walls taken up by a squad of men. The Captain is front and center. The face on his left: it's his.

The Soldier spins away and comes up against a glass display.

The face—his face—looms large. James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes.

He takes a deep breath. He can feel the man in his head growing more real every minute. More alive. More than just a voice.

"This was you," he whispers.

_'Yes,'_ the man answers. _'A long time ago.'_

The Soldier turns his eyes to the paragraphs on the right.

_'Don't read it,'_ the man chokes.

"I want to," he says. A woman gives him a strange look and hustles a little boy away but he pays them no mind.

He reads the story. The brief summary of the life his borrowed body lived and died. The man HYDRA kept trying to kill, again and again and again.

The man laughs in his mind. _'They would have, too. If you hadn't hidden me.'_

"I didn't," the Soldier starts but the voice shushes him. Right. Civilians present. He tears his eyes away from the face and makes for one of the exits he'd marked without thinking.

_'Yeah, you did. And…thanks, pal.'_

The Soldier makes it to a secluded alley before giving in to his newfound panic. He grasps at the rough wall as he hyperventilates, chest heaving. The man in his head starts talking again. _'Easy now, take it easy. One breath at a time, hold it for a minute. Let it out slow, there you go. Focus on my voice, nice and easy.'_

The Soldier feels his eyes sting, strangely wet. His breathing evens out after long moments of concentration. When he's able, he gasps out, "Used to do that for him."

_'Sure did,'_ the voice answers. The Soldier somehow knows that if the man had feet, he'd be shuffling them. He feels his own toes twitch. Wriggles them. _'The punk had asthma back then something awful. Thought he was going to die on me more than once.'_ A snort fills the Soldier's brain. _'Body didn't match his heart, not before.'_

They're both silent for a while after that. The sun sinks in tiny increments and the air develops a chill. The late spring breeze helps blow away some of the scent of rotting garbage from further down the alley. He feels his knees ache. The Soldier shuffles his feet, trying out the movement. It feels natural.

"I didn't get to choose a side," he says. "They made me." He flinches, feeling that the man in his head is at once livid, incandescent with rage.

_'You don't owe them anything,'_ he spits. The Soldier's lips form the words along with him, silent.

"How do you know?" he asks when he dares.

The man snorts again. _'How do you not?'_

The Soldier tries an experimental shrug. It feels easy, but at the same time distant. His flesh shoulder is going numb. For the first time he realizes it may not be the cold, nor the lingering effects of a hasty reset. He keeps the thought to himself, away from the man. He considers for a long moment, both the question and what he thinks might be happening. What he thinks about letting happen. Would it be so bad? It isn't really his body anyway. Maybe it's what he deserves. He may not owe HYRDA anything (he hasn't decided) but he thinks he sure as hell owes the man in his head.

And it will be his choice. That feels…good. He is already loosening, moment by moment. He answers, "I know nothing but what they put in my head. Tools aren't allowed to think. But you seem to know better."

The man laughs. _'I always thought I knew better. Wasn't true that much.'_ Then he pauses, the beat sharp. _'What are you doing?'_

The Winter Soldier wants to laugh but he doesn't remember how. It wouldn't be more than a mockery of the noises the man makes anyway. He keeps it to himself but says, "Choosing a side."

_'You can't,'_ the voice breathes, whispering across his mind. _'Not like that. You can't just…let go.'_

"I can," the Soldier responds, forcing his voice to stay level. It's not that hard. "I choose to stop being their weapon. But I can't be anything else. I've got no further use for this body." He takes a steadying breath, planting chilled feet. "You do."

The man is silent for a long time. The Soldier waits him out. He speaks again, voice thoughtful. _'I dunno if it'll be like you expect.'_

"It's ok," the Soldier says, a phrase he now remembers hearing over the years in various scenarios. It seems applicable. He takes in a gulp of air, wets his lips. "What's it like to die?" he asks next, words tumbling out. He's killed so many people but none of them ever told him. Not even the ones who did it slowly, who'd had the time. Then again, maybe they hadn't realized he was asking.

The man in his head laughs: long, sharp. The Soldier shudders.

_'Wouldn't know,'_ the voice is dry. _'Never had the pleasure. I keep waking up.'_ He pauses. The Soldier waits, back pressed against the dirty brick. He can still feel it, growing distant. He's ready to let go, to let himself fade. Return stolen property, as it were. He's scared but he doesn't think that's stopped him before. He's just grateful he can identify the sensation, feel it in full. A corner of his mouth drifts up without his say. He lets himself fall a little more and finds himself sitting in the alley, still plastered to the wall.

The voice in his head is getting even stronger.

_'Anyway,'_ it continues. _'Something tells me this isn't your end. You're a hard man to kill.'_

The Soldier snorts, harsh. Something he has learned from the man, a sound he can make without it being an imitation.

_'Don't be like that,'_ he croons. The Soldier relaxes. The fingers of his right hand are numb. The left is as cold as ever; he digs the metal into the pavement beneath him, an anchor point. His head is spinning. He doesn't want to get this wrong.

"Прощай," he whispers.

_'No,'_ the voice says. _'For the last time, you're not going to disappear. If I didn't, you won't. I think…'_ He stops again. When he resumes, the man sounds even more sure than before. _'We're breaking up the divide between us. We'll come together. Some of you and some of me. Nothing to be scared of. You'll always be here.'_

"Like you've been for me?"

"No," the man says again, this time with his mouth. The Soldier closes his eyes. "More than that. We're one person. Always have been."

The Soldier considers for a long moment. The man—his other self, the beginning of his new self—is waiting. For his final say, last green light. He decides it's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for him.

He nods to himself, relaxing the grip of his metal hand. _'Ok,_' he whispers in his head. He lets go.

Bucky Barnes opens his eyes for the first time in seventy years.

* * *

Notes: Translations provided by the wonderful lissko (fanfic u/ 3408466):

1) Что-то не так. – There's something missing.

2) Мне не важно. Я просто выполняю задание. – I do not need to know. This is my mission.

3) Тебе и не нужно – You don't need to.

4) Хорошо, что ты вернулся. Тишина была невыносима. – It's good you've returned. The silence was terrible.

5) Ты тоже говоришь по-русски. – You also speak Russian.

6) Не веришь во что? – Believe what?

* * *

7) Прощай. – Goodbye.


End file.
